Cuttack, May 18: The state government's bid to acquire 272 acres at Bijapati village, 20km from Balangir town, for the Lower Suktel Irrigation Project has hit a roadblock because of delay in issuing notification for acquiring the land.

Orissa High Court today quashed the notification for land acquisition at the village as the Balangir land acquisition officer had not properly followed the rules. Bijapati is one of the 29 villages estimated to be affected due to the proposed 30 metre earthen dam proposed to be built under the project at Magurbeda over the Suktel river, a Tel tributary.

On November 24, 2001, chief minister Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone for the project. The proposed dam aims to provide irrigation to 31,830 hectares of farmland in three blocks of Balangir district - Balangir, Punitala and Loisingha - besides Tarbha block in Sonepur.

On December 31, 2011, the land acquisition officer had announced that they would acquire 272 acres at Bijapati village. The notification for acquisition was issued on October 22, 2013.

Bijapati villager Prahalad Padhan, who was to lose 10 acres, filed a petition in February, seeking invalidation of the notification for land acquisition. The petitioner said the notification was issued after 21 months (instead of the prescribed 12 months) declaring intention for acquiring land.

"The division bench of Justice Sanju Panda and Justice K.R. Mohapatra quashed the notification for not adhering to the prescribed norm after the state counsel conceded about the delay," petitioner counsel Sankar Prasad Pani told The Telegraph.

The quash order came at a time when the administration was stuck in conducting survey for compensation and neither took physical possession of any land at Bijapati nor awarded relief to any person at the village. The administration, on the other hand, has not been able to enter 14 villages, where villagers are opposing the project.

The project has been in the eye of a storm due to protracted agitation in Balangir over relief and other facilities for the displaced people, according to the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.